


Mind Of Steel, Heart Of Gold

by bagel_fish



Category: Original Work
Genre: Conversations, Friendship, Gen, Loneliness, Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 11:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13480431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bagel_fish/pseuds/bagel_fish
Summary: Jessa has always wanted to live in a haunted house.A monster isn't a ghost, but it's close enough.





	Mind Of Steel, Heart Of Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/gifts).



> I had a lot of fun with this! Happy Chocobox, recip! :D

The first time Jessa hears it talk, it’s voice is barely a whisper.

“A new child… A new child…” The voice is hissing, sibilant, softer than goose down.

Jessa plucks up the courage to speak. “Are you… a ghost?” When there’s no reply, she adds, “I’ve always wanted to live in a haunted house.”

There is the soft sound of a sigh. “It must be a new age,” the voice says, slightly louder than before, “When a child cannot tell there is a monster under her bed.”

The word monster falls heavy into Jessa’s mind, and for a moment she cannot speak, her throat choked by fear. A _monster_ , of unknown form, shape or size, separated from her by only wooden boards and a mattress that’s starting to feel entirely too thin. It would be enough to make any child run for their parents, blind with fear.

But if she steps from the bed, it might get her.

The hissing voice says, “Afraid of monsters but not of ghosts? Interesting.”

“I’m not afraid,” Jessa says, quick and stubborn.

“Human children have never been renowned liars.”

A long moment of silence falls. Then Jessa asks, her voice shaking, “What…what do you want?”

“Oh, nothing,” the monster answers. “Simply a place to lay my head.” It gives a disturbing chuckle. “You should sleep, child. You have a long day ahead.”

And Jessa surprises herself by sleeping soundly, the whole night through.

*

The next time it speaks is to ask a question she doesn’t want to answer.

“Why are you crying, child?”

Jessa tries to hide a sniffle. After two weeks she’d convinced herself the talking monster under her bed had been a dream; apparently that is not the case. “Who’s crying?”

It laughs. “You are, stubborn one.”

Jessa wipes her nose on the back of her hand. “S’just dust in my eye.”

“If you say so,” the monster allows, “Though I might comment that it has been only two weeks since your arrival in this house, and I have yet to be disturbed by other small children paying a visit to your home. Might it be that you are lonesome?”

“No,” Jessa says, her bottom lip pushing out.

“As you will.” They both lapse into silence. Jessa turns from side to side, one way and then another, unable to get the monster’s words out of her head.

Eventually she leans over the bed slightly and says, “Hey monster. Are _you_ lonely?”

There is a pause. “A little,” the monster says. “At times.”

“How can a monster be lonely?”

“When he is too monstrous for even his own kind to bear.” Maybe it’s her imagination, but Jessa thinks the monster sounds sad.

“You must be pretty scary, then,” Jessa says, rolling over onto her back to stare up at the darkened ceiling.

“Yes,” the monster says simply, “To my own I am… strange. Unlike them. They fear what is different.”

Jessa snorts. “Yeah. I know how that feels.”

For a long time all Jessa can hear is the sound of her own breathing. “Perhaps it would please you, human child,” the monster says, “To have a monster as your confidante?”

Jessa smiles. “Perhaps it would please you, terrifying monster, to tell a human child all your deepest, darkest secrets?”

The monster’s laughter is dark, but it warms something inside her chest. “Perhaps,” it says, “I would.”

*

She makes some friends, eventually. None of them are quite as easy to talk to as the monster.

“When did you start living under my bed?” she asks one night.

“This has been my home for many years,” it answers. “I am fortunate that even as the house changes hands, the owners continue to place a bed in this room. It makes for a most effective hiding place.”

“You don’t have to live under the bed?”

“I am not bound to it. I am not bound to this building, either, though I have become comfortable here.”

She asks many questions about monsters; it doesn’t answer all of them.

“You would not want to know,” it often says; “The knowledge would haunt you.”

Jessa is of the opinion that she could handle it, but when the monster says it will not tell her something, it will not be moved.

*

One night, six months after Jessa’s arrival in California, she asks the monster, “Why do the other monsters think you’re strange?”

For a long time there is no answer. “I am different,” the monster says. There is a note of pride in it’s voice as it continues, “Of older, greater stock. Many others have watered their blood, but my family have not.”

“So you’re a snob,” Jessa says with a grin.

There’s a grumble from under the bed. “No,” the monster says. It sounds mulish. “We are simply closer to the great creatures that came before.”

“Before?”

“Those horrors walked this earth before humans were so much as single-celled organisms pulsing blindly through the primordial oceans. None of us now living could hold a candle to their glory; but I and my family are closer, purer - though still but a clouded reflection of that long-ago majesty.”

_Snob_ , Jessa mouths to herself, still grinning, before asking, “If you’re a ‘reflection of glory’ and all that, shouldn’t they want to be _near_ you?”

“And they do,” the monster replies, “And yet, so they also wish to run. I repel and attract in equal measure; others of my kind long to be my servant, even as they choke on their blinding desire to flee.”

“So how does all this greatness end up with you hiding under my bed?” Jessa asks.

“I do not hide,” the monster growls.

“I’ve never seen you.”

“I have chosen to remain hidden.” The monster pauses, then sounds almost awkward as it continues, “You make a surprisingly insightful confidante, Jessa Wingrave. I would not wish to harm you.”

That makes Jessa blink. “Harm me?”

“For my own kind I am hard to look upon; you do not think it would be worse for human eyes? I would not wish for our acquaintance to end with you incarcerated in a sanatorium.”

“A what?”

“I would not wish to drive you mad.”

Jessa bites her lip. “You can do that?”

“It has been known to happen.”

They’re silent for a minute or so. “I don’t think it would happen to me,” Jessa says, filling her voice with a confidence she’s not entirely sure she feels.

“I would not risk your mind.”

“Maybe not,” Jessa says, “But I would.”

After a moment the monster sighs. “That, I suppose, is an entirely different affair,” it mutters.

“My mind’s made up,” she says, “And I want to see what you look like. Will you show me?”

“You have demanded it of me,” the monster says, “I cannot but comply.”

Sitting up, Jessa turns on her bedside lamp. “I’m ready,” she says. Her stomach flips over.

The monster steps out into the light.

 

 

 

 

 

_(You know, Jessa says, You never did tell me your name)_

_(That would be too much even for you, the monster laughs, O Jessa of the Steel Mind)_


End file.
